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Monday, March 20, 2017

"The word ‘lithophone’ is derived from two Greek words,
‘lithos’ and ‘phone’. The first can be translated as ‘stone’, whilst the
second means ‘sound’. Therefore, a lithophone may be said to be a
‘sound-making stone’." argues Wu Mingren, university student doing a BA degree in Archaeology.

Today, this word is used to denote a type of
musical instrument made of stones. Lithophones have been discovered in
different parts of the world, including Vietnam. Researchers have said
that lithophones were played between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago.Generally speaking, a lithophone consists of several stone
slabs of varying sizes. As these stones are struck, different tones are
produced. Therefore, a lithophone may be considered to be a percussion
instrument, and it has often been compared to a xylophone.

The Vietnamese Lithophones In Vietnam, lithophones are also known as Dan Da, which translates as ‘stone instrument’. The first lithophone is reported to have been discovered in 1949. In February of that year, a set of 11 large stone slabs, standing close together in a vertical position, were unearthed by a group of road-builders in Ndut Lieng Krak, in the province of Dak Lak, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. As these stones were thought to have some historical significance, a French ethnologist by the name of Georges Condiminas was contacted.It was observed that the slabs, 10 of which were intact, were of varying sizes, and had been chiselled. This suggested that they had served a particular function. Subsequently, Condiminas requested permission from the Mnong people, with whom he was living at that time, to have the stone slabs brought back to Paris to be further studied by experts. This request was granted, and the stones were transported to the Musée de l’Homme in Paris to be examined.Establishing the Musical Function of the Stone Slabs It was during these examinations that the aural function of
the stones was established. According to one source, this discovery was
made by Condiminas himself, when he accidentally struck one of the
stones, and realized that it made a sound. According to another source,
it was André Schaeffner, a musicologist, who speculated that the stones
were used to make music. Schaeffner noticed that there were tool
markings on the slabs, which was taken to be an indication that they
were tuned. In addition, the musicologist also recognised that the
stones produced different notes when struck, thereby allowing him to
arrange them according to pitch.

Similar discoveries were made in the following decades. For
example, the biggest known set of lithophones so far was discovered in
2003. In that year, 20 slabs were unearthed by a farmer in the province
of Lam Dong, also in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Such supposedly tuned
stone slabs have been unearthed on a regular basis. Whilst it is often
claimed that these are lithophones, not all of these claims have been
substantiated. Nevertheless, as of today, over 200 lithophones have been
verified as genuine by experts.

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Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.